A large retail bank launched a digital transformation strategy for competitive advantage. The challenge was finding and recruiting scarce digital skills at scale.

They were approaching recruitment traditionally – via agencies and direct marketing – with limited success. They sought a partner to help source and upskill potential candidates to become data scientists. In turn, this would enable them to execute the digital transformation strategy in 12 months.

The bank approached us to train 50 delegates in data science skills. After 12 months, the bank had an internal data science competency, ready to execute against a roadmap of critical projects. This project accelerated the bank’s journey towards digital transformation.

Delegates undertook an intensive 12-month data science course. The coursework of approximately eight months consisted of the following modules:

• Data science terminology and problem-solving
• Data visualisation
• Python programming
• SQL
• Machine learning: regression
• Machine learning: NLP and classification
• Machine learning: unsupervised learning

Coursework was followed by a three-month internship where delegates worked on real-world, bank-specific projects using the bank’s own data.